St Thomas Forane Church welcomes Academic Year - 2006

Author: Jobi Varghese   Featured: June 4, 2006

At least a few among the parishioners who reached Bangalore's St Thomas Forane Church on Sunday, 4th June might have wondered if this church was staging a countdown to the Soccer World Cup in Germany scheduled to start on 9th June.

They can't be blamed for thinking so, because such was the splendid arrangement of the church altar on Sunday, the eve of the beginning of the new academic year – amidst lovely flowers, models of school children, bags, and books was a football so conspicuously kept as to draw anyone's attention.

However, Rev. Fr Mathew Koikkara CMI, the architect behind this marvellous altar arrangement, had other ideas.

Forane Vicar Fr Mathew Koikkara has, in a little over one year's time, introduced several new programmes and concepts, and this was just another example of his creativity.

Altar arrangement at St Thomas Forane Church, Dharmaram, Bangalore on the week starting Sunday, 4th June, 2006, in the build up to the School year starting on 5th June.

The football in fact signifies just a simple thing – that children need, along with education and food, physical development also; that is, they should be participating in sport. It is only that the team behind this fabulous and meaningful arrangement conveyed the message across by this novel and imaginative method, and it was timed with the beginning of World Cup 2006 out of pure coincidence.

A bag, a book, and a pen were symbolically placed on the altar. Models of children found a place among baskets of fresh flowers.

This altar arrangement is no doubt one of the best works ever to have been displayed at the St Thomas Forane Church, Dharmaram, Bangalore.

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